Migrants Have Been a ‘Godsend,’ New York Schools Chief Says
The New York Times
In an interview, Chancellor David C. Banks said migrants had helped schools that were bleeding students. He also promised a big new role for artificial intelligence.
As the school year opens for an American education system facing multiple crises, one education leader is staking out a curious stance. He is sublimely optimistic.
Public schools in the United States lost more than one million students between 2019 and 2022. The deluge of cash relief distributed during the coronavirus pandemic is drying up. And in a politically polarized era, fresh fights over what students learn in class are continuing to emerge.
But David C. Banks, the New York City schools chancellor, whose national profile rose this spring after his unyielding testimony at a House hearing on antisemitism in schools, argues in a recent interview that the state of urban education is not so bad.
All the woes of urban school districts can be found in New York, a diverse city that is contending with a major influx of homeless migrants. But in a departure from Mayor Eric Adams’s warnings that the migrant crisis is upending city life, Mr. Banks described the arrival of immigrant children as a boon.
As many states retreat from the teaching of race and identity in schools amid rising controversies, the chancellor doubled down on the value of those lessons in New York.
And he said that the rise of artificial intelligence did not represent an alarming threat of chatbot-enabled cheating, but a chance to transform education for the better.
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The nation’s only Medicaid work program is part of a broad Republican push to change how poor people qualify for health care. In a second Trump term, Medicaid could be a target for huge spending cuts.
New Yorkers are spending billions on houses in flood-prone areas despite growing awareness of the effects of climate change.
D’yan Forest goes swimming, plays golf and then closes her day with a 10-minute set at Gotham Comedy Club that brings her a “huge sense of happiness and success.”
Donald J. Trump has made his revisionist account of the Capitol attack the foundation of this campaign, even when there is little political advantage.
President Richard Nixon’s remarks were captured on his secret White House recording system but had eluded the notice of leading Nixon era historians until now.
The new top police officer will take over an agency that Mayor Eric Adams has seeded with loyalists, who have created an atmosphere of intrigue and aggression.
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